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The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil,    but because of the people who don't do anything about it

Occupation magazine - Life under occupation Home page  back Print  Send To friend Praying in Hebron a security nightmare for Palestinians By Samih Chahine Agence France Presse 31 March 2005 DATELINE: HEBRON, West Bank March 31, `Stop. Walk forward. Lift your shirt. ID card`. Such are the orders Israeli soldiers bark out to Muslims herded through frightening security checks to pray at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron. Venerated by Jews as the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Muslims as the Abraham Mosque, draconian security measures were strengthened in early March after two Israeli soldiers were wounded by Palestinian fire at the West Bank site. `It`s humiliating. They don`t want anyone to pray here,` complained 62-year-old Fahd Nasseredin after passing the first security hurdle. He lives next to the Tomb and has been praying there since childhood. `It used to take me five minutes to get to the mosque from my house. Now I need half an hour,` he said. The highly charged holy site has been a source of untold tension in the heart of the southern West Bank city for decades. In 1994, it was divided into two, one for each faith, after a Jewish extremist massacred 29 Palestinian worshippers in one of its prayer rooms. Today, electronic barriers, surveillance cameras, barbed wire and bunkers have transformed the perimeter of the Tomb into something akin to an army camp rather than a place of worship. Merely to pray at the Tomb, Muslims have to pass through a metal detector, turnstile and electronic gates, all under the steely watch of soldiers armed to the teeth. Many are also subject to a body search and an identity check. Najah Abu Sneineh, from Jerusalem, begs a soldier to let her through quickly so she does not miss a service. A guard reprimands her and shoves her into the queue. `They`re criminals. I only want to join the prayers but I`ve missed it thanks to their searching and checkpoints,` said the 40-year-old woman. Complicating the situation, most of the roads leading to the Tomb have been closed by the army since the Palestinian uprising broke out in September 2000, with a curfew frequently in force in the surrounding Palestinian areas. The restrictions have led to a severe drop in the number coming to pray at the Tomb. Chief sexton Hijazi Abu Sneineh says less than 100 Muslims attend the five daily prayers in the mosque compared to more than 300 before the military stepped up their security measures at the beginning of March. Palestinians also accuse the army of frequently banning Muslims from using the loudspeaker in the call to prayer on the demand of Israeli settlers. `It`s all down to the whim of the settlers. The loudspeakers are banned on Shabbat, Jewish religious days and in the evening,` Sneineh said. Hundreds of Israeli soldiers are based in Hebron to protect around 500 Jewish settlers who live in the midst of 150,000 Palestinians. Last week the army evicted two Palestinian families from their homes backing onto the Tomb to use it as an observation post during the Jewish carnival of Purim. `Settlers went to the house to offer (the soldiers) their best wishes for Purim,` said Abdelhamid al-Jaabari, the owner of one of the homes. `I saw them dancing in my own house while my family and I had to sleep round at the neighbours,` he said. Links to the latest articles in this section 16-year old Palestinian in very critical condition delayed for hours on his way to Hadassah hospital B`tselem Video: Israel prohibits Gazan children from visiting imprisoned fathers Settlers Puncture Car Tires Near Bethlehem, Write Racist Graffiti